Lower 9th Ward librarian wins first Lemony Snicket Prize

If ever a librarian has faced adversity, it is Laurence Copel. In spite of limited resources, a leaky roof and squirrels in her attic, she has managed to bring thousands of books and thousands of smiles to the children of New Orleans. So it is no surprise that the founder of the Lower 9th Ward Street Library was awarded the first ever Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced With Adversity.

On June 29, she received the award from Lemony Snicket himself at the American Library Association (ALA) Conference in Las Vegas. It was quite a thrill for her.

“It was absolutely fabulous,” she said when I talked to her on Monday (June 30). “I was given many, many, many books.”

The award also included $3,000, a free trip to the conference for Copel and her son, Kazumi, and a “certificate” announcing her prize. The certificate is a large platter created by best-selling children’s author Mo Willems. It features a whimsical picture of Copel pedaling her bookmobile.

“He made a magnificent plate for me,” Copel said. “The whole experience has just been amazing."

Youth outreach librarian Laurence Copel, New Orleans, is presented with the first Lemony Snicket Prize For Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity during the ALA Awards.Curtis Compton

The award was created by Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, the author of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and also a character in the 13-book series. As a character, he is hounded by his enemies and suffers considerable adversity. Handler created the award “to remind readers everywhere of the joyous importance of librarians and the trouble that is all too frequently unleashed upon them.”

What is lovely and so appropriate about Copel’s winning the award is that, in a way, the American Library Association led Copel to the Lower 9th Ward. If you were in New Orleans in 2006, you might remember that the ALA was the first large group to schedule a conference in the city after Hurricane Katrina. It brought 18,000 people here in June 2006 and was the only significant tourist event that summer.

At the time, Copel was the outreach librarian for the New York Public Library, and she desperately wanted to attend the conference to show her support for the city.

“I just couldn’t afford to go,” she said.

But she never lost her desire to visit, and she and Kazumi finally made it to New Orleans in 2009.

“I came with my son for a week with no other plan than to spend money and be a good tourist,” she said.

When she was checking out things to do, she learned they could go on a “disaster tour” to see the most devastated parts of the city, but she didn’t think she wanted to do that.

“I asked the tour operator if any of the tour money would go to the people in those areas, and he said, ‘No. You wouldn’t want those people to have the money anyway,’” she said. “I decided to do a swamp tour instead.”

She was taken with the city, and she returned the next year for Mardi Gras. During that visit, a volunteer working in the Lower 9th Ward took her on a tour of the area, and she saw how little progress had been made there. But she found herself drawn to the survivors who were rebuilding their lives there, and she loved the music and the spirit of New Orleans.

“New Orleans is a very deep, very appealing place,” she said. “There was this huge sort of spiritual call after Katrina. A lot of people just felt pulled here by the needs of the city.”

At that time, the New York Public Library had cut programming. Her position as outreach librarian had been eliminated, and Copel was working behind a desk. “But I liked to pull my suitcase around and go to shelters and parks and prisons,” she said.

In June 2010, she came back to New Orleans armed with children’s books and stayed for a month.

“I just started reading to children on street corners. It was summertime and they didn’t have anything to do,” she said.

Like so many other teachers and healers, she felt pulled by the needs of the city. By the end of the year, she had rented a house in the Lower 9th Ward and settled in. In 2011, she began getting free books from a program called Books to Kids, with one stipulation.

“Their only request is that I give the books to the kids,” she said.

So she has been giving away children’s books ever since and is now known as “the book lady.” Because many children in her neighborhood don’t have transportation, she often takes the books to them. In the beginning, she would load up her bicycle basket with books and pedal around the neighborhood.

“But I could never make it past St. Claude (Avenue),” she said. “By then, I had given all the books away.”

Copel’s only income comes from working part-time at the International School, which amounts to about $350 a week, barely enough to cover her living expenses. But she knew she needed a better way to deliver her books. So she started thinking up ways to raise money.

“Irvin Mayfield gave me $500, and I sold raffle tickets and I had parties,” she said. “And I bought my bookmobile.”

The $1,000, industrial-strength three-wheeler has a shelf across the front that can hold 100 pounds of books. Guiding the unwieldy tricycle through pothole-filled streets can be a challenge, but it gives Copel a good workout.

“And it’s the only bookmobile in New Orleans,” she said.

There is a Public Library bookmobile, but it is not being used. She has tried to meet with the mayor, and she has talked to people at the New Orleans Public Library about becoming an outreach librarian and traveling around to all the neighborhoods where children have little to do.

“I could do the whole city. I did that in New York. I could certainly do it in New Orleans,” she said.

But she was told there’s no money in the budget for an outreach librarian, so she is an unofficial volunteer outreach librarian, taking books around her neighborhood, to the community Guerilla Garden at the corner of Chartres and Charbonnet streets, and to the Healing Center on St. Claude Avenue.

“I’m doing the job for free,” she said.

Copel loves parading, and last year she told her friend Ann Marie Coviello that in three years she was going to do her own parade.

“She said, ‘You can do one in three months,’” Copel said. “And I did.”

The day before Mother’s Day 2013 she held the first Lower 9th Ward Street Library Book Parade, and it was such a success she repeated it the day before Mother’s Day this year. It included a float, a brass band and the Krewe of Ex Libris -- children dressed up as their favorite storybook characters handing out books along the route.

“It’s a fabulous parade,” Copel said. “It costs me about $1,000 to put it on because I have to have a police escort.”

This year, the parade started at the Guerilla Garden. Two hours later, it ended at the Lower 9th Ward Street Library, which is in Copel’s house. Last year, she was able to buy a small double near the river through the city of New Orleans soft second mortgage program for low-income, first-time homeowners. She lives on one side and has a tenant on the other side who agreed to have the Lower 9th Ward Street Library in his front room.

It’s wall-to-wall books on shelves made out of wood and cement blocks. And at this time of year, it is very warm in the library.

“I could use an air conditioner, but I can’t afford one,” Copel said.

Every Saturday she invites children in the neighborhood to come in and pick out a free book. Soon, she will have many more -- the ones provided by the nonprofit group First Book that were part of The Lemony Snicket Prize.

“I have lots and lots of autographed books for the kids,” she said.

One of the best parts of receiving the prize was having her son at the awards reception. She had attended his high school graduation in New York a few days earlier, and they traveled to Las Vegas together.

“He was part of the street library from the very beginning,” Copel said.

Kazumi lives with his father during the school year, but often spends vacation time and summers with his mom. And his rabbit Truffles followed Copel to New Orleans to become the story bunny.

“The very first year we took the bunny to story time,” she said. “I read ‘Peter Rabbit,’ and the children got to pet the bunny. They were so excited about it they didn’t know that someone was shot at the end of the block.”

There is much that troubles Copel about New Orleans: the crime, the poverty, the lack of services where she lives.

“The Lower 9th Ward exists on its own,” she said. “We get no support from the government -- local, state or federal. They’ve all ignored this part of the world.”

But she has much to be thankful for: the neighborhood children, who bring her joy; the Books to Kids program, which has kept her going since she came to New Orleans; the volunteers who help her; her tenant who is so generous with his room; the Jewish congregations around the country that have supported her; and, of course, her Lemony Snicket prize.

“I don’t do this in a vacuum. I couldn’t do it alone,” she said.

And she has her own little house in a city filled with music.

“I love to dance, I love my neighborhood, and I get to sing in a gospel choir,” she said. “I’m happy here. This is home.”